“We won’t starve,” I whispered to the empty kitchen. “Not immediately, anyway.”
Eating meat might keep us alive, but I’d been raised with bread and vegetables forming the foundation of my diet. Beast could hunt, but I needed more than flesh to feel truly nourished. These grains and beans would extend our meals, provide variety, comfort.
My hands traced the countertops as I continued exploring, finding treasures with each opened drawer or cabinet. A grinding stone for turning wheat into flour. Bowls of varying sizes, some cracked but many still whole. Utensils crafted from wood and metal, designed to last generations. And most precious of all, containers of salt and sugar—closed off from air and moisture, preserved as if waiting for someone like me to find them.
I brought each container to my nose, checking for mold or rot, but found only the clean, sharp scent of salt and the sweet aroma of sugar. Luxuries I hadn’t expected to find, yet here they were, waiting to transform simple ingredients into something approaching pleasure.
“A cow would be nice,” I said aloud, imagining milk for porridge, butter for bread, cheese for flavoring the beans. “Chickens for eggs. Maybe a garden come spring.” I laughed at myself then, already planning a future in this place as if I’d decided to stay permanently. As if I weren’t essentially a fugitive, hiding from a village that wanted me dead and a man who wanted me chained. And I couldn’t forget the decaying forest around me. How would I get the soil to take the seeds? And where would I find seeds?
Still, practicality demanded I make the best of what I had now. I found a large bowl and added a generous portion of beans to soak once I got them under some water. Tomorrow they would be soft enough to cook, their dried bodies swelling to twice their current size, providing enough food for several meals.
But when I reached for the water tap, nothing happened. The pipes gurgled mockingly, but not a single drop emerged from the spout. I frowned, examining the apparatus more closely. Papa had taught me the basics of plumbing, explaining how water flowed through pipes using gravity and pressure. If the castle’s system still retained water in its cisterns to this part of the castle, then a blockage or break was the most likely culprit.
I opened the cabinet beneath the sink, crouching to peer into the shadowed space. Sure enough, one of the metal pipes had separated from its adjoining piece, creating a gap where water would leak instead of flowing to the tap. A simple enough fix, if temporary.
Pushing up my sleeves, I reached in and aligned the two pieces, pushing them together with a grunt of effort. They connected with a satisfying click, but I could already see where water would seep through the imperfect joint.
“Need something to seal it properly,” I muttered, eyes scanning the kitchen for inspiration. An old dish towel, frayed but still intact, caught my attention. I tore a strip from it and wrapped it tightly around the pipe joint, tying it securely.
Not perfect. Not permanent. But functional.
I rose and turned the tap again, smiling with satisfaction as water flowed smoothly into the bowl beneath. The beans bobbed gently in the rising water, promise of future nourishment.
I stood back, surveying my small accomplishments with disproportionate pride. House slippers. Stored grains. Running water. Beans soaking for tomorrow’s meal. Such simple things, yet each represented a step away from mere survivaltoward something resembling living. In the face of witchcraft accusations, near-drowning, and being claimed by a beast, finding these ordinary comforts felt like triumph.
The scrape of claws against stone alerted me to Beast’s return before I saw him coming through the back door to this kitchen. I glanced up from the wheat grinder I’d been examining, wiping dusty hands against the faded fabric of my borrowed dress. But the creature that appeared in the kitchen doorway wasn’t the same one who’d left me hours ago.
Oh, he looked the same physically. His massive body covered in that rich brown fur, amber eyes, black horns curving from his skull, but something fundamental had changed.
His movements were jerky, anxious, as he paced the perimeter of the room, nostrils flaring with each rapid breath. He wouldn’t look directly at me, his gaze darting around like a cornered animal searching for escape.
“Hello there,” I said softly, as if greeting a skittish horse. “Found the kitchen, as you can see. There’s plenty here we can use.”
He didn’t acknowledge my words. His paws made no sound as he moved, but I could feel the vibration of his weight through the stone floor. Back and forth he paced, a pendulum of fur and muscle, keeping to the edges of the room as if afraid to approach me. His fur looked darker in places, matted with what might have been mud or worse. He’d been digging, hunting, orfighting. None of which explained this new nervousness around me.
I laughed lightly, trying to break the strange tension. “Come here,” I said, waving him over. “Look what I’ve found. We won’t have to survive on just meat.”
Beast’s head snapped toward me at the sound of my laugh, ears flattening briefly before pricking forward again. His eyes fixed on my face with an intensity that made my breath catch, but there was something missing in that gaze. The human intelligence that had so struck me before seemed dimmed, buried beneath something more primal.
I waved him over again, but his only response was to tilt his head in apparent confusion, as if my simple gesture were incomprehensible to him. A chill ran through me that had nothing to do with the castle’s perpetual dampness. Was he slipping away? Losing what remained of his humanity to Beast he appeared to be?
The thought terrified me more than it should have. I barely knew him, this creature who had claimed me so thoroughly. Yet the prospect of him sinking completely into animal instinct felt like losing something precious. Something that couldn’t be replaced.
How long had he been trapped in this form? Years? Decades? Curses were the stuff of children’s stories, yet here I stood in an abandoned castle with a man-beast who couldn’t speak but understood human language…or had, until now. Papa’s words from my dream echoed in my mind.“Trust your questions.”
And the question that haunted me now was simple. What if every day in this form chiseled away more of his humanity? What if, eventually, nothing of the man remained?
I made my decision in an instant. If his primal yet intimate connection to me was the only thing keeping him tethered to his human side, then I wouldn’t deny him that anchor. Not when myown situation remained so precarious. Not when I needed him sane and at least partially human if I had any hope of breaking his curse and saving Papa from those blood-drinking roses.
My fingers moved to the worn fabric of my dress, untying the simple knot I’d made to keep it closed at my throat. Beast’s pacing stopped abruptly, his nostrils flaring as he scented the change in me. Those amber eyes tracked my every movement as the dress slipped from my shoulders, pooling at my feet like water.
I turned from him deliberately, bending over the worktable where I’d been grinding wheat for tomorrow’s bread. The position felt vulgar, exposed. My bare backside presented to him like some animal offering, but I recognized the raw power in it. This was a language he would understand, even if my words failed to reach whatever humanity remained inside him.
I wasn’t wrong. A low growl rumbled through the kitchen, so deep I felt it vibrate in my chest rather than heard it with my ears. There was no hesitation in him now, no confusion or nervous pacing. He knew exactly what I offered and what he wanted.
Beast crossed the room in three powerful strides, his claws clicking against stone, his breath hot against my exposed flesh. He climbed slowly to tower me, and I felt his movements by where his heated breath hit my spine next.
I had a moment to brace myself, hands gripping the edge of the worktable, before he mounted me. No preamble, no gentle exploration. Just the blunt pressure of his manhood seeking entry, finding it, and claiming me with a single, powerful thrust that forced the air from my lungs.
